Category: Development

Antimicrobial medicines, including antibiotics, have long been overused and misused, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which added that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is “spreading further and faster every day”.   AMR happening now  Antibiotics are medicines used to prevent and treat bacterial infections, explained the World Health Organization (WHO), and are included in the more encompassing term of antimicrobials. … Read More

“This great achievement shows that together we can overcome any health challenge”, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director General, wrote in a tweet.  The outbreak in DRC’s northwestern Equateur Province emerged in early June and caused 130 Ebola cases and 55 deaths. Vaccinations key A key part of the response – with potential lessons for the global fight against… Read More

Speaking, via a video message, at the launch of the Fund, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed described safe sanitation and hygiene as “critical to the response that we want to see, first, because it is about human dignity; second, it is a health issue.”  4 billion people worldwide do not have access to safely managed sanitation services, and until they… Read More

“Eliminating any cancer would have once seemed an impossible dream, but we now have the cost-effective, evidence-based tools to make that dream a reality”, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. The strategy, backed by WHO Member States at the World Health Assembly last week, involves vaccinating 90 per cent of girls by the age of 15, screening 70 per cent of… Read More

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the UN agency is “extremely concerned” by the surge in cases in some countries, particularly in Europe and the Americas, which is pushing health workers and health systems to breaking point.  “This is a dangerous virus, which can attack every system in the body. Those countries that are letting the virus run unchecked are… Read More

“Many efforts have been made to prevent and treat diabetes”, but the disease continues to rise rapidly in low and middle income countries, those “least well-equipped with the diagnostics, medicines, and knowledge to provide life-saving treatment”, said Secretary-General António Guterres.  A gloomy picture  Globally, some 422 million adults are living with diabetes (latest figures from 2014), according to the World Health… Read More

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was making closing remarks at the closing of WHO’s governing body, the World Health Assembly, which finalized its annual session this week after its regular May meeting was cut short by COVID-19 safety requirements. Historic vaccine advances The WHO chief highlighted the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine breakthrough announced this week, which results indicate could be around 90 per cent effective,… Read More

The death toll in 2019 was 50 per cent higher than a historic low reached in 2016, and all WHO regions saw an increase in cases, adding up to a global total of 869,770.   This year there have been fewer cases, but the COVID-19 pandemic has further set back vaccination efforts, with more than 94 million people at risk… Read More

“We now have the consensus and the commitment of every country to work in an integrated, cross-cutting manner in tackling all the neglected tropical diseases”, said Dr Ren Minghui, WHO Assistant Director-General for Universal Health Coverage, Communicable and Noncommunicable Diseases. 2030 targets The freshly-inked roadmap sets global targets and milestones to prevent, control, eliminate and eradicate 20 neglected tropical diseases… Read More

Marking World Pneumonia Day, on 12 November, UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore, highlighted the coronavirus factor, noting that “while the world grapples with the pandemic and the severe consequences it poses for the most vulnerable, we must not lose sight of the fact that pneumonia continues to claim more than 2,000 young lives every day.”  Every breath counts   UNICEF pointed out… Read More